“The maze wasn’t made for you”: Artificial consciousness and reflexive narration in Westworld (HBO, 2016-)
TV Series February 26, 2019 Florent Favard
The HBO series Westworld challenges viewers to reconsider what consciousness is by weaving a story about free will and self-interest together with lessons on how to write a serial character. The paper first explains the "hard problem" of defining consciousness, then follows the series' logic to examine memory, improvisation, and self-interest through a narratological lens based on possible worlds theory. The series draws on the tradition of narratively complex science fiction television from recent decades to pose its philosophical questions.